An EHS ambulance outside of South Shore Regional Hospital in Bridgewater, NS. Photo: Evan Taylor
This week Nova Scotia announced plans to invest in more ambulances and drivers to help deal with ongoing ambulance shortages across the province.
The Province plans to buy eight new ambulances and nine new patient transfer vehicles. Additionally, they will hire 28 new drivers, however, they will not be trained paramedics.
The government is also adding $3.1 million to the service’s annual budget.
Michael Nickerson, business agent for the International Union of Operating Engineers local 727 representing paramedics, says he was pleased to see the new government follow through on their promises to support paramedics but they do have concerns with the plan.
“Currently patient transfer units operate with two trained paramedics, with these new drivers coming in some units will now only have one trained paramedic on board which will increase their workload,” Nickerson said.
Ultimately Nickerson says he understands why the province is opting to hire non-trained paramedics to drive ambulances. He says that there is currently a shortage in trained paramedics so this will help in the short term as the province can work towards training more paramedics.
One thing Nickerson does not want to see happen is the expansion of untrained drivers to emergency ambulances, “The plan is for the new drivers to only work on transfer units that typically deal with patients in stable conditions, what we don’t want to see is discussions about allowing untrained paramedics driving ambulances dispatched for emergency duties.
According to Nickerson emergency ambulances require two trained paramedics as typically when two paramedics are on-board they will switch driving and paramedic roles for each call which he says is needed for them to be able to work efficiently throughout a shift.
Overall Nickerson expects the changes to have a positive impact but he says that his union would have liked to be consulted more as these plans were under development.
